Metra to test air in trains, on platforms

Metra officials knew they had a chronic problem with blue clouds of diesel exhaust hovering inside Chicago's two major rail stations.

But transit officials said Tuesday that they hadn't realized the lung- and heart-damaging pollution is being sucked into the stainless-steel train cars that carry more than a quarter of a million commuters every weekday.

Responding to a Tribune investigation, which found the amount of diesel soot inside trains leaving downtown is up to 72 times higher than on the streets outside the stations, Metra announced it will start conducting its own testing next week on commuter platforms and inside its passenger coaches.

The agency also is creating a task force of transit officials, union representatives and environmental health regulators to explore new ways to clean up the toxic exhaust.

"We take this very seriously," William Tupper, Metra's acting executive director, said during a hastily convened meeting at the agency's West Loop headquarters. "Hopefully there are some changes that can be implemented quickly."

Metra announced its new initiatives a day after U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin called for a federal investigation of the pollution problems revealed by the Tribune.

Testing by the newspaper found the amount of diesel soot lingering in the air steadily increases as commuters walk deeper into the city's train stations. Levels are higher on platforms, where commuters can literally see the air they are breathing.

The air quality gets dramatically worse after boarding a train, the testing found, and soot levels remain higher than normal during most trips away from the city. Exposure drops sharply only after getting off the train.

Normal levels of diesel exhaust in Chicago and other U.S. cities range from 1 to 2 micrograms per cubic meter of air. By contrast, the Tribune found spikes of up to 72 micrograms per cubic meter on a Metra train from Union Station to Downers Grove, and somewhat lower levels on other outbound trains.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers diesel exhaust one of the most dangerous types of air pollution. Studies have linked exposure to a variety of health problems, including cancer, heart attacks, respiratory diseases, diabetes and brain damage.

Despite growing health concerns about diesel exhaust, Metra is refurbishing a third of its aging locomotives to keep its dirtiest trains in service for at least another two decades, a move that will save the agency money but make it more difficult to clean up the air people breathe while commuting.

Metra previously said it had no plans to upgrade old ventilation systems that help trap sooty air inside its coaches. But that could change now.

"If we can find a better filter for our train cars, we'll do that right away," Tupper said. "If we need new, more powerful ventilation fans in the train stations, that will take longer. Obviously something that costs a lot of money, we need to find the money to pay for it."

Officials with Amtrak, the national rail service that shares tracks with Metra and owns Union Station, said they often remind neighboring property owners to maintain ventilation fans and ducts designed to suck diesel exhaust out of train tunnels. The systems are operated by the owners of eight skyscrapers that rise above the tracks.

Several officials singled out the Old Post Office, just south of Union Station, as a big contributor to the exhaust problem.

The shuttered building was purchased last year by British developer Bill Davies, who is represented locally by Daley & George, the law firm of Mayor Richard Daley's brother Michael. The firm didn't return telephone calls seeking comment.

"We have to keep on the property owners about this," said Ray Lang, senior director of Amtrak's government affairs office. Lang feared that if the problem isn't fixed soon, it could sully the image of rail travel as a "green" form of transportation.

In response to complaints from workers, Amtrak and Metra periodically have tested the air inside stations. The most recent testing, conducting during two days in July, showed sharp spikes of diesel pollution in Union Station from 4 to 6 p.m., when multiple trains are backed into the station.

The pollution is a complex mix of toxic substances such as benzene, arsenic and formaldehyde, many of which can cause cancer. It also is filled with tiny particles, commonly called soot, that can lodge deeply in the lungs and penetrate the bloodstream.

Even though multiple studies have documented health problems from exposure to the pollutants in diesel exhaust, workplace standards for some of the toxic substances haven't been updated in years, in part due to industry opposition to Occupational Health and Safety Administration regulations.

Federal and state officials also acknowledge they are woefully behind in assessing how breathing highly polluted air for short periods of time every day might affect a commuter's health.

"These problems with the trains and the stations have been going on for years," said Paul Piekarski, a statewide official with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen union. "We have to make sure this time the issue doesn't go away until it's fixed."

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